


Shadows Cast by Stars

by FrozenFractals (Quixcy), Quixcy



Category: Frozen (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, If you only read one work by me, Yeah it's happening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-03 07:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quixcy/pseuds/FrozenFractals, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quixcy/pseuds/Quixcy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Elsa learns that Hans has escaped with the help of an otherworldly shadow god, the fear inside of her flares to life again, colder and harsher than before. The only way to conquer it once and for all is to see Hans brought to justice--for her sake, and the sake of the kingdom. But Pitch Black knows fear better than anyone, it's more or less in his blood. How can the Queen of Arendelle conquer her fear when she finds herself fighting the monster made of fear itself? It's not just winter Elsa has to save Arendelle---and the world---from, but the darkness itself, and she's beginning to realize that fear and cold go well together... so well, in fact, it's almost seductive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the End

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after Tangled, Frozen, and Rise of the Guardians, but before Tangled Ever After. Check your sanity at the door, please.

 

Things had just gone out of control.

It wasn’t that he ever intended to kill the Queen of Arendelle, because it definitely hadn’t crossed his mind until the moment he actually decided to. Hans had just simply wanted to meet the princesses, and he had enjoyed Anna, and he did feel a little ashamed that he left her for dead.

He really _did_ like her.

He just didn’t _love_ her, so she would have died anyway even if he had kissed her. If he had, he would’ve watched the hope in her eyes transform to confusion, and then hurt, and finally heartbrokenness. He liked Anna, oh, at the beginning of course he liked her, and a small part of himself kicked his stupid, greedy head for getting in the way.

He wished he’d never met Anna. He wished they would have stayed two people in a boat held up by a horse. He wished they would’ve been each other’s open doors.

Maybe then he’d be marrying a princess instead of stuck in a cell on a boat, feeling more nauseous about going home to face his twelve older brothers than from the green stuff disguised as food that slopped around in his bowl. His brothers were going to kill him--- _honor-kill him_. With a sword. Straight through the heart.

If he’d just kept his cool and married Anna, the whole cursed-queen thing would’ve worked itself out. The villagers would eventually see who she was---what she was.

Even her sister would see it. Love might cure everything, even death, but it couldn’t cure what was inside the Queen.

“Your fears are well-placed, I must say,” said a liquid voice.

Startled, Hans jumped to his feet. “Who’s there?” And more importantly, since when had he started thinking out loud?

“Oh, it’s only your worst nightmare.”

Hans bit the side of his cheek to keep himself from laughing outright. “Really? And here your entrance had such promise. ‘Oh, it’s only your worst nightmare,’” he mocked in an uncharmed baritone, “because that scares me.”

“Well, I’d like to see you do better,” the voice replied, wounded. Then, on second thought, he added, “It’s still a good entrance though, right?”

“Oh yeah, perfect,” the Prince replied sarcastically, folding his arms over his chest. He felt safe in his cell, since he’d tried for three days to escape it---there was no way of getting in, or getting out, so he thought he was, for the majority, safe. “Besides, man, it’s pitch black. I couldn’t see you even if I tried.”

“See, now that’s the funny part…”

Out of the shadows of the ship, from the corners where no one could hide, came a tall, slender man with slicked-back hair as black as tar, wearing robes that seemed to shift and fade with the changing shadows around him. He looked at Hans, pitless black eyes gleaming, and smiled a toothy ice-colored smile.

Hans stifled a gasp, finally afraid, and stumbled against the back wall of his cell, overturning his grubby food bowl. The green crusty contents spilled all over his polished lacquer boots, but he didn’t even notice. “What in the nine seas are you?”

“Nothing from any of the nine seas,” replied the monster with a shrug. “Not really even from this world.” He reached his thin, long fingers into the only lit lantern below deck as it cast glows across the damp floorboards, and snuffed the flame out. Everything fell into darkness, save for the monster, who almost seemed to glow in it.

No, it was like he was the darkness, the shadows, the night.

“My name is Pitch, Pitch Black,” the slender man said with a bow, and snapped his fingers. The lock on the cell popped off, and the door swung open.

“O-Oh gods, please don’t…please don’t kill me…” Hans whispered as his knees buckled, and he sank down against the wall. “P-Please don’t…”

“Kill you? Oh, dear, I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot.” Pitch Black extended a hand to the shivering young man, all toothy smiles and gleaming pitless eyes. “I’m here to help.”

 

* * *

 

“Elsa! Come on, you made me skate so you have to dance!” her sister teased, grabbing Elsa by the arm and dragging her onto the dance floor. Couples swirled around them like clockwork in ridiculous ball gowns and towering hair. Anna looked so simple compared to them, in a modest green dress that brought out her eyes and those silly, clunky books she found at the Oaken General Store and Sauna.

“Anna, you know I don’t dance,” Elsa argued without really meaning it, letting her sister pull her into the bray of dancing companions.

“You do with me,” Anna teased. “You never do anything fun---and tonight is supposed to be fun!”

“Can’t we ice skate instead?”

“Enjoy summer! If a snowman can enjoy summer, I think my sister can, too.” Anna nodded her head to Olaf on the dance floor, dancing circles around one of the princesses from Andalasia.

Elsa bit her bottom lip and downcast her eyes to their feet. Anna was practically bubbling over with excitement. Parties were her thing. She was outspoken, charismatic, and above all else, normal. Elsa had to watch where she put her ungloved hands. Just yesterday she accidentally touched a railing with her fingertips and a young servant boy twenty yards away leaning on the same railing got frostbite. He was lucky she didn’t freeze his fingers clean off.

But telling Anna that she was still worried, and still afraid, would only upset her, and she looked so happy. Happier than Elsa had ever seen her. Perhaps it was because the gates were open, or perhaps it was because of a certain mountain man eating all of the chocolates with his smelly---albeit adorable---reindeer.

So Elsa did what she promised Anna she would never do again, she hid her fear under a smile. “You’re right, but I think you should be dancing with that hunk over there before he eats all of our chocolate.”

Anna ducked her head, hiding a blush. “Oh, who? I don’t know him. At all. We’re not together or anything---I mean we’re really not together but we’ve been talking about it and oh! He really likes the sleigh you---we?---gave him and the endless supply of carrots. Sven does, not Kristoff. Although I think he eats them too? He---”

“Anna,” the Queen sing-songed with a real smile. It wasn’t hard to smile when her little sister was all flushed and blustered over a guy. “You should go ask him to dance.”

She perked. “But what about us?”

“I danced.” A little, she added to herself. “And I don’t want to be the reason why you didn’t get to tonight. Go on, have some fun.” She twirled her fingers, and a wisp of cold air swirled down from the muraled ceiling and pushed Anna toward Kristoff. Anna glanced back, once, making sure it was actually okay, and it was, before she ran to Kristoff and threw her arms around his broad shoulders.

Elsa returned to her place at the head of the ballroom, hands clasped together, and watched. And slowly, so slowly she barely noticed, the muscles around her mouth began to tighten, and then strain, until her smile wasn’t sincere anymore, and all she wanted to do was go back to her room and read a book.

But the Queen had to attend the ball, and especially after all the trouble she caused she couldn’t just run away again. Not that she wanted to, and not that running had crossed her mind since that day a month ago on the fjorde, but…

A small part of her wondered what it would be like to dance with someone cheek to cheek the way Anna and Kristoff did when the orchestra began to play a slow and enchanted melody. She wondered, and wished, and smiled, and clasped her hands together tightly as the couples spun, and spun, and spun.

  


 

* * *

 

 

**Burgess, USA - Present Day**

 

Jack was whistling something---it was some sort of song. Catchy, poppy, something the teenaged girl below him blasted out of her headphones as she walked home. He balanced on the powerline above her, bobbing his head, not really having anything else to do. He wasn’t stalking the girl, per se, but he did really want to know why Jamie liked her.

I mean, she’s cute, he thought, not sure whether he should feel disgusted or okay with the thought. He had the mindset of a teenaged boy and the memories of a three-hundred year old deity. Yeah, there was definitely some conflict going on there.

She’s cute for Jamie, he added, correcting himself, and sudden felt enormously better. Jamie’d been crushing on this girl for three months straight now, ever since he first caught a glance of her in his art classroom. She was an eight grader. He was a sixth grader. What had Jamie called it? Tragic love?

Jack had snorted, and wanted to tell him that it was way less than tragic, but then he remembered that Jamie couldn’t see him anymore, or hear him, so he kept his retorts to himself.

He really shouldn’t have followed Maddy---that was the girl’s name. Maddy Melinda. She even lived two blocks up from Jamie and he didn’t even realize it. They passed each other sledding countless times. They even played once together as kids, but it surprised Jack how much kids forgot as they began to not believe.

“It’s part of the magic,” Tooth had said, pulling teasingly on his jacket ends. “It only lasts so long.”

“That’s crap, Tooth,” he had argued, keeping his voice playful although he meant the words. Bunnymund kept saying that Jack and Tooth were bound to get together eventually, and they had, but she was too level-headed, and always shivered whenever he kissed her. That annoyed him the most. “If magic is magic then why do people forget about it? Why’s it swept under the table?”

“Not all magic…” she replied, and kissed the tip of his nose, her feathers shivering at the touch. “Not the magic that counts.”

Jack sighed and stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets. The pop song was beginning to grate on his nerves. What was the point in following a girl around, anyway? He stepped off the powerline and the wind swept him up in her arms. “Carry me home, wind,” he muttered, closing his eyes, when---suddenly---it felt like something grabbed his spleen and ripped it straight through his body.

He cried out, almost dropping his staff, and flipped over in the air. “What the hell?” he gasped, eyes screwing in pain.

“Jack, North Pole!” It was North, his Russian accent like a bullet through Jack’s already pounding skull. “At once!”

But the wind was already taking him there, so quickly the world below him was a blur. And, a few moments later, he slammed through North’s workshop window and rolled out onto the Persian rug. He groaned, turning over onto his back. He’d never get used to being summoned. It always felt like being pulled through a wormhole belly-button first.

Tooth and Bunnymund were already gathered around the Man in the Moon stone, whispering nervously to each other, until they noticed Jack on the carpet, and then they plummeted into silence.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Jack said sarcastically, getting to his feet.

Tooth and Bunny shared another glance before she said, “I don’t think…we should wait until Sandy gets here.”

“Right,” Bunny agreed.

“So where is he?” Jack asked, curious, because Sandy was usually the first one to arrive at impromptu meetings like this one. “Because we’re wasting daylight and I have to get back to my whole guardian thing before---”

“There you go with the whole condescending tone again,” Bunnymund muttered, folding his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you just say it, mate? You hate responsibility.”

“Is that what this is about?” Jack asked.

“We can include it, if you got enough time.”

Jack sucked in a breath between his teeth and cocked his head. “Yeah see…no. I really don’t.”

“Can you two get along? Please?” Tooth asked, frowning. “This is serious.”

With a huff, Jack turned to her. “How serious?” The last “serious” situation was a lost tooth in Bangkok. She had them wandering around the city for hours until she realized she’d already put it in its proper box. So yeah, there’s that.

“How serious? How serious?” stressed Bunnymund. “What---are you kidding me, mate?”

“It’s just a question…”

“How serious is this?” The rabbit thrust a snow globe into Jack’s face. “How serious is this?!”

Jack blinked, and eased back an inch from one of North’s magical snowglobes. It looked like any other wintery scene until…until it turned out to be in a ballroom. A very beautiful, ornate ballroom with murals of summer glens on the ceiling where a light dusting of snow fell, and fell, and fell, and landed on the noses of the ballroom’s dancers. But instead of dancing, they were skating---or at least most of them were. Two young women---sisters? although they couldn’t dress any more differently---bickered off to the side.

 _“Please don’t leave, it’s not even evening yet!”_ the strawberry-blonde pouted. _“We haven’t even had dinner!”_

The other one, whose hair was so pale it almost looked white, sighed tiredly. _“It’s okay. Have fun, entertain our guests. I have business to attend to. Being Queen isn’t all chocolate fondue and parties.”_

_“Elsa…”_

Jack rose an eyebrow at Bunnymund. “So you…have a crush on a girl?”

“Bollocks, wrong place,” he muttered, irritated, and shook the snow globe. The snow inside spun, whirling, and melted into a small seaside town, the rooftops the color of refracted glass on the beach, with a tall, sand-colored castle at its heart. Jack couldn’t think of where that could be. He’d never seen a place anywhere like it, and he’d been all around the world.

But then, in the crowd of merchants and market-goers, a shadow slithered behind a redheaded man in a frock, almost too faint to be seen.

Jack didn’t recognize the young man, but he recognized the shadow, and the moment sent a shiver up his spine. “Pitch?” He couldn’t even believe the name slipping from his lips. “Pitch is alive?”

“He stole one of North’s globes and left,” Toothiana whispered between her fingers. She bit her thumb nervously, hovering just behind Bunnymund, eyeing the portal.

“I’m going after him,” said Jack defiantly, already shaking his head.

Bunnymund scoffed. “Yeah, mate, in a million years. You can’t go there.”

“Why not? Newflash: I won’t melt.”

“That’s not the problem, Jack,” Tooth frowned.

Suddenly, the windows and doors in the toyshop burst open, filling the room in a liquid sandy gold. It converged in front of them, twisting into a shape, and Sandy saluted them dutifully.

“Sandy, tell Jack he’s not going through the snow globe. It’s suicidal. He might not even come back.”

The Sandman nodded, frowning.

“I’m never lost. I’ll just tell the wind to bring me home,” Jack replied smartly.

Another voice----Russian, rough, but surprisingly charismatic---argued, “The wind couldn’t bring you that far, Jack.” North hurried up the last few steps to the landing with the Man in the Moon stone. “Sorry I am late. Had to make sure.”

Everyone knew what that meant---going to Pitch’s lair, to the place he’d been sucked down into the pits of hell. But not evidently far enough, Jack thought to himself as North shook the snow off his coat and hung up on a yeti.

Bunnymund began to roll the snow globe back and forth between his paws, and Jack noticed the scene shift to the white-haired girl again, alone, walking down a royal corridor with windows lighting her way. The way she moved, shawl glistening like freshly fallen snow, made him…

“He is truly gone, and there is no way for us to reach him. Not with Christmas so soon…” North stroked his beard, shaking his head. “No, he is out of our hands.”

Jack’s face screwed. “He’ll wreak havoc wherever the heck he is now!”

“Language,” Tooth chided.

He ignored her. “Seriously, you are just going to let him walk away?” Looking around, not a single one of them could meet his gaze.

“We’re not lettin’ him walk,” Bunny argued, “but we’re all needed here.”

“And if we can’t get back, poof Christmas---and Easter,” North added for Bunny’s sake.

Tooth nodded. “And no more sweet dreams or wishes or fun. We have to pick our battles. I’m sure they can handle Pitch…”

“And what if they can’t?” Jack argued.

“Then we destroy the snow globe,” Bunnymund replied resolutely, shrugging. “If the bugger can’t get back, he’s stuck.”

Frost glared. “And we damn that world.”

“Language!” Tooth cried. “Use other words.”

Jack grit his teeth, but something within the last few minutes had started to make his heart race---and not from fear. This was it, the chance he’d been waiting for. Goodbye invisible guardianship, hello adventure. He’d felt like molasses ever since taking the oath, always stuck, never pushing forward. Now he had the chance to do something again, not just protect, but fight.

It wasn’t really a choice that he made, but a choice that he wanted. The Man in the Moon gave him a second chance, to serve as a guardian, and he was grateful. But then, why give him a second chance if he spent his time stalking his friend’s hopeless crush and throwing snowballs at people? Not that he minded the snowballs bit, but there had to be something more.

There had to be.

Without thinking, he reached out and took the snow globe from Bunnymund’s grip. “Then I’ll go. North, can you lend me another snow globe so I can come back? I’m the only one, besides Sandy, who even stands a chance. Someone has to go, and I don’t have a major holiday to slave for---snow days not included.”

North’s rosy face screwed, as if he debated on disapproving of Jack’s plan, but there weren’t any other options, and Jack knew North wouldn’t let another world suffer at the hands of Pitch like this world had. North was too kind, and too innocent, and too trusting. He took out another globe from the coat he hung on the yeti, and handed it to Jack. The snow globe shrunk to the size of a marble, and he pocketed it. “Be careful, Jack. I do not think magic works the same there.”

“It’ll be fun, then,” the young man replied, and rose the other snow globe to whisper his destination, but then paused. “Uh, where am I going?”

“Arendelle.”

“Arendelle,” he told the globe, the name rolling off his tongue like butter, and threw the snow globe into the air. It flashed, glowing bright, before it spiraled and widened. A sweet, sticky summer wind pushed through the portal. Jack looked back one last time to his friends, and found he’d never been so nervous to say goodbye before, or so glad to have something to leave behind.

He saluted them with a grin, and tipped backwards through the portal into the sticky summer heat.


	2. The Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hans has a secret of his own...

Okay, to be quite frank, Hans was scared of Pitch. He was scared of Pitch in the same way the men in the mountains were scared of Yeti and blizzards. The same way the sailors on the ships were scared of mermaids and hurricanes.

Oh, was Hans afraid of Pitch! Afraid of him like he was sometimes afraid of his own shadow, not because it always followed him, but because, like his shadow, Pitch knew him, and when Pitch grinned that terrible jagged-toothed grin, Hans got the feeling that Pitch knew him better than Hans even knew himself.

And Hans thought he knew himself very well. Until the whole Arendelle thing, of course, but he tried to blot that out of his head. Forgotten things couldn’t hurt you.

Hans hitched his pack higher on his shoulder and squinted up the side of the mountain. It was a sheer sheet of white---not like Elsa’s blue-ice white, but an immaculate soulless white where nothing and no one lived. “Um, Pitch? I---I was just wondering if you knew where we were going…”

“Of course I do,” was the shadow-man’s languid reply.

“Well, considering that you’re not really from here…”

“Doesn’t me I don’t know the stories,” he replied. “I know plenty of stories. I’m in stories. I’ve heard petty little mothers talk to their muleish little toads these stories.”

“Stories…” Hans echoed, not quite understanding. “Like research? Books?”

Pitch heaved a sigh and asked impatiently, “Don’t you have bedtime stories? Fairytales?”

“Of course but---”

“Then stop asking questions.”

“But how did you get here?” Hans tripped on a rock under the snow, but caught his balance. The thought of his entire existence being a story was highly unlikely, but he played along because he didn’t like to think about the alternative. Pitch could just as easily put him back on that stupid ship, and Hans definitely did not want that. “What is your world like?”

“Tasteless. Bland. Full of good and hope and cheer. And _magic-less_.” He spat the last word like a curse. “It’s dull, Hans. You don’t want to visit.”

“Magic-less? But you have magic…”

“Why do you ask so many questions? I helped you escape from that ship, didn’t I? I didn’t have to. I could’ve left you there for your brothers to sentence you to death. That is the punishment for treason here, isn’t it?” Pitch paused then, and looked over his shoulder at the infinitely younger man. “Well, at least then they would have finally taken notice of you.”

Hans narrowed his eyes. The punishment for treason was death. By the hands of the Royal firing squad. But knowing his luck, his twelve older brothers would pull out their own pistols and shoot him dead themselves. He could just hear his mother now, “You brought dishonor on all of us! How will I ever show my face in Arendelle? How will any of us?”

Not that they ever went to Arendelle, too busy hosting hunting parties to slay the last of the dragons and gloating over the ones they’ve slewn over fat feasts. Hans never liked killing dragons. He’d never killed one himself. He felt as though there was just something inherently _wrong_ about killing the last of a species.

…And then he tried to kill the Ice Queen and his own morality took a nosedive.

He finally sighed, choosing not to respond, and followed Pitch up the side of the mountain. They were somewhere on the western side of Corona, a country still celebrating the return of their lost princess. At least she didn’t have twelve older siblings to contest the throne with, and who does she decide to get engaged to? A petty _thief_.

The world wasn’t fair. It really, really wasn’t.

A few hours later, a cave came into view between the pillars of rock and snow. Hans was shivering by then, the tips of his sideburns frosty and his lips numb. Pitch didn’t seem bothered at all by the cold. Hans wondered if he _was_ a shadow-god.

“Ah, here we go,” Pitch said approvingly.

“Why c-c-couldn’t you just wave your hand and put us here instead? Like you d-d-d-did back on the ship?”

“Because, if you’ll casually step this way, you will realize that my magic will not work anywhere near the cave.”

Hans’ eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

Pitch outstretched his hand to the mouth of the cave and gave a small bow, as if to say _after you_.

Hesitantly, the young prince shifted on his feet, the snow crunching underfoot. There was a distinctly sweet smell in the air that reminded him of honey and sunflowers. Pitch crinkled his nose, as if it smelled like rotting flesh, and stepped a little further away from the mouth of the cave. Hans was intrigued though, or at least he thought he was. The closer he came to the mouth of the cave, the harder it felt to turn back, as if something was drawing him in. Something warm.

Almost…comforting.

“What story are you looking for?” Hans asked, dazed. “Is it in here?”

“You’re getting warmer,” Pitch singsonged.

The youngest prince of the Southern Isles was at the lip of the cave by then. He bent in, looking away into the darkness---but there was a pinhole of light inside the cave. A campfire? He shivered against the cold, and took another step closer, just to see if anyone was inside.

“Hello?” Hans called. “Is anyone---”

“Oh, for tar’s sake,” Pitch muttered, and shoved the boy headfirst through the mouth of the cave.

Hans barely made a cry before he stumbled into the shadows, trying to catch his footing, to right himself, but tendrils of dark wrapped around him and reeled him in like vines. They twisted around his throat, his wrists, his legs, and the harder he fought the tighter they grew until he could barely breathe, and the cave was so warm beads of sweat began to saturate his brow.

“Pitch!” he gasped for help. “P---”

And then, from the darkness of the cave, the firelight flickered out, and reappeared inches in front of his face. It wasn’t a fire, but two eyes attached to a long, molten face and a body of charred skin and bones. The sweet honey smell soured into a gagging, suffocating musk---Hans had only smelled it once, when his third youngest brother set their dog on fire. It was the smell of skin and hair, burnt beyond repair.

“Why hello there,” the monster hissed, and when it opened its mouth the skin crackled and popped, showing cracks of molten red underneath, like it had burned away from the inside out. “Are you the sacrifice?”

 _Sacrifice_? Hans thought, reeling, but he couldn’t move. He was helpless and his heart was racing. He was going to die.

“Charming,” Pitch commented.

Hans gulped down his fear, his muscles reeling because he couldn’t move, and he was so scared he was afraid to move. So afraid and helpless. He closed his eyes, like he did when he was little, when his brother hunted for him throughout the castle, calling him names because of his red hair and fair skin, because it was so obvious what he was. His brothers were all tanned and dark-headed. They were all broad and muscular, and could slay dragons on white steeds. They could probably slay this---this thing---right now, too. Hans was four again, curled up in the cupboard, rocking back and forth and wishing with every particle of his very soul that he was invisible.

The tendrils eased away from him, and then dropped altogether. He cracked open an eye, but the creature didn’t seem to be looking at him at all. It cocked its head, tongue clicking, past him to Pitch.

Hans jumped away, brushing the bits of ash off his frock sleeves. The creature stared on at Pitch like Hans wasn’t even there anymore, and Pitch stared at the creature like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing---or unsure of what he wasn’t.

“Well, that sure comes in handy,” the shadow-god commented lightly.

The monster gave an anguished cry, out-stretching its arms, skin popping and breaking, flakes falling off onto the cold ground, then hissed away in clouds of steam.

Pitch threw his hand out, and a spike of black sand flew forth and struck the creature between the eyes. Its horribly twisted mouth formed a silent O, eyes widening---and the worst was, they were the only thing human left about the monster, a blue so bright it reminded Hans of the Ice Queen’s eyes---before the thing dissolved into ashes.

The young man’s knees gave way. “What the _hell_?!” he gasped.

Pitch jerked his head down, as if startled, but it quickly morphed into amusement. “Language,” Pitch tsked. He still did not make a move to enter the cave---not that Hans cared. He’d leave the cave to kick Pitch’s ass!

Hans turned, teeth grit because Pitch was just so calm standing out there. He knew this thing was in here. He purposefully let Hans go first. Shadow-god, savior---whatever---no one used Hans of the Southern Isles as charred zombie-creature food!

And Pitch’s grin only grew. “So,” his voice was liquid, “the invisible boy is no longer scared of the big, bad wolf. Come now, do you really want to wreak revenge on me, or on your brothers?”

There was so much anger in Hans, he could barely think straight, and the cave was still so hot and stifling. Like it was on fire, even though his breath came out in puffs of cold, and the sharp sleet-like snow began to drift in, coating the cave floor. “What if I want to do both?” the young man snapped.

“Then that is perfectly good on your own time,” replied Pitch, pitless eyes gleaming with a saintly sort of madness, “but you will need what is at the end of this cave to do it.”

Hans jabbed a finger back into the cave. “And what’s back there, huh? What’s back there that can help me kill all of them?”

“Why don’t you carry on and find out for yourself?”

Hans was still shaking---from anger for being such a fool, and from fear for being such a coward. If Pitch was telling the truth, and if in his world there were stories, none of them would be about Hans. He wasn’t the hero. He never would be. But feeling the fear that crippled his muscles and fractured his bones…it set something off inside of him, an idea.

A flame.

He took a step back, and then another, deeper into the cave until the darkness swallowed him whole and he couldn’t see a thing. But the things in the darkness---if there were things in the darkness---couldn’t see him, either.


	3. Blood and Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack meets a talking reindeer, a man with the manners of a reindeer, and a talking snowman. Oh, and there might be a tiny, itty bitty problem with a letter...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much! I didn't realize how popular this story would be... It really makes me giddy beyond belief. I'm on cloud nine, really.

Jack decided the castle looked incredibly… Disney. It was really the only possible adjective that would adequately describe the castle of Arendelle. He could just picture it in one of Jamie’s sister’s storybooks. Spiraling towers, turquoise roof, open windows and a lofty courtyard… it was a castle someone took a lot of heart Imagineering up. Even the town around the castle was… quaint. Thatched-roof houses and muddy stone floorboards, innkeepers sweeping the filth out of the doorways, puffs of dust and smoke trodding behind wagon wheels and children scuttling under the hoofs of horses. It reminded Jack of…

Well, of before the cold. Before the lake.

Just plainly before.

He strolled through the town, his hands in his hoodie pockets, staff tucked under his arm, just watching. Eavesdropping. He’d never felt more alive than this. The summer sun didn’t even bother him, which he noted was odd but… refreshing. He hadn’t really enjoyed summer in a hundred years or so. He’d just gotten so used to the cold, to the chill that crept across his cheeks and numbed the tips of his ears.

But the sunlight felt wonderfully warm, and it was brilliant. When he began walking across the bridge to the castle, he had his hood up, but halfway across he slid it down and tilted his head up just enough so the sunlight bathed his cheeks and ears and neck and lips and eyelids and everything---absolutely everything---in warm, tender summer sun.

It seemed like magic here worked differently. Back home, his skin would start to crackle and peel. Back home, this would be uncomfortable, like standing in a sauna wrapped in a parka, long johns, and a wool blanket.

But this wasn’t home, and he was already starting to forget that.

A group of children playing kick-ball outside of one of the pastry stores caught his eye, and he stopped to watch them. One of the little girls, her hair braided into twin pigtails, reminded him so much like his sister, he almost thought she was.

Almost.

“Why yes, he does look familiar,” someone said behind him in a mocking tone. Jack’s shoulders stiffened.

“I think it’s the white hair, Sven,” the same voice, now not as mockingly, replied.

Jack looked over his shoulder, white eyebrow raised. A blond-headed man, broad-shouldered, quickly glanced down at his reindeer, sharing a carrot. Jack frowned, and faced the children playing ball again.

“I think he heard us,” the blond-headed man said in a whisper.

“You think?” ‘Sven’ the miraculously-taking reindeer replied. “No, I think he is pretending he heard us.”

“Probably. Hey, you.”

This time, Jack was sure the man was talking to him. But how could he see him? How could anyone? Even a few of the kids, now disinterested in playing kickball, turned to look at him.

“He’s got hair like the Queen!” one of the boys whispered to the one who looked so much like his sister. Jack caught her eye, and held it for a fraction too long. She looked away first, took the little boy’s hand, and quickly led him away.

Jack resisted trying to stop her, and instead turned a glare back at the blond-headed brute. “Can I help you with anything?”

The blond snap[ed ramrod straight, as if he didn’t expect Jack to actually address him. “Well, uh, actually… you’re the one who looked a little lost. Can I help you find anything?”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“You sure, you look a little…”

“I’m not lost,” Jack replied, trying to keep the snark to a minimum. He didn’t know the customs here, although he was somewhat sure that snarking back to a Norwegian-looking broad-shouldered bulk probably wasn’t all that much more frowned upon than back at home. Tooth always scolded him whenever he “regressed.”

“You’re a guardian now, Jack,” she said once, although it was playfully at the time, “you’re not a teenager.”

But, in fact, he was. A teenager. And an ice god. And a slew of other things that would just inflate his ego.

He folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head at the brute. “I’m just new,” he amended after a moment, looking past the man to the sleigh and the reindeer grazing in a bag of carrots left in the seat. “Blitzen’s eating your food.”

The man’s face screwed at first in confusion, before he glanced over his shoulder at his reindeer and gave a loud groan. “I told you to save me one! No, spit it out. Now.” The reindeer complied, spitting out a hunk of carrot that the man ate.

Jack thought he was going to be sick. He cleared his throat. “So, actually, I’m looking for someone.”

The blond raised an eyebrow. He swallowed the carrot, wiping his slimy hand on his vest. “Like family?”

“Um, no. Not---not at all. But it’s important that I find him. You see he’s…” a homicidal maniac who wants to bring darkness to the entire world and then, through that darkness, rule it? That would take too long to explain. “He’s wanted. For bad things.”

“So you’re a bounty hunter of some kind?”

Jack liked the sound of that. “Yeah, sure, and it’s important that I---” What’s a good bounty-hunter-like word? “---apprehend him.”

“Then you need to see the Queen,” the blond-headed man replied, and struck out his hand. “I’m Kristoff, by the way, and this is Sven.” He jabbed a thumb back at his reindeer friend. “I can take you to the Queen…?”

Jack took his hand. “Jack.”

“Jack.  Great meeting you…” Something past Jack caught Kristoff’s attention, and his eyebrows knit together. “Excuse me---there’s something…” He brushed past Jack to an incoming horse. “I thought you were gone.”

“Rapunzel and I intercepted a message on our way back.” The rider said, sliding off the horse. He held up a letter. Jack squinted closely. Were the edges…stained with blood? “I need to speak with Elsa---”

“What’s the message?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t opened it.  We found it on a mailer.”

“Found it on a mailer?” The blond deadpanned. “The letter has blood on it.”

“Well it could be ink, or rust,” the rider replied, brushing his hand through his hair. It was a nervous habit, Jack decided, like Kristoff shifting his weight from foot to foot was his. “But the poor guy it as stapled to---”

“Stapled?”

“---was skewered on a big pointy thing in the middle of---”

“Big. Pointy…”

Jack watched in a terrible kind of amusement as Kristoff began to pale. His friend really wasn’t explaining the situation right, as the talking snowman beside Jack said. Wait, talking snowman? Jack did a double-take, and the carrot-nosed creature looked up at him and repeated the same words. He didn’t hear them. He didn’t hear them because he screamed and jumped back into a passing stranger. The woman yelped and they toppled over together.

The rider and Kristoff turned their heads, confused.

“Sorry, sorry,” he told the woman profusely, helping her up, before waving a hand at the snowman. “It talks,” he said as an explanation. Even the Frosty fairytale in his world wasn't really a talking snowman. It wasn't even real. Not that North hadn't tried. “Do they all talk?”

Kristoff began to answer, but then closed his mouth and shook his head. “Let’s go see Elsa. I think can handle this.”

“Who is _Elsa?”_ Jack finally asked.

The snowman looked at him like he was an idiot. “Elsa’s the Queen. Have you been living under a snowball?”

No, but another world would've sounded completely insane, even to a living snowman. Resting his staff on his shoulder, he followed after the motley crew into the castle, and glanced back for a moment, because he felt like he should. The little girl with brown hair and eyes, her fingers still holding her little brother by his shoulder, stood by the fish cart, staring after him. No, his sister was dead. She had been dead for close to three hundred years. Magic moved in strange circles, but he knew it couldn't bring back the dead. But he couldn't shake the familiarity, and it haunted him.

It haunted him until they reached the enormous teal wood doors into the castle, and the sight of the towers, the spirals, the marble floors, the fountains spilling crystalline water, the servants paused as they passed, and finally the shimmering queen in her icy throne, sitting so poised and still she almost looked like ice, took his breath away.

 


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Queen Elsa receives word that Hans has escaped, she isn't sure what to do---until a sinister shadow pays her a visit.

“Queen Elsa,” the steward called from the end of the hall. He was a plump man, middle-aged, with a balding spot Elsa and her sister, Anna, used to draw on while he slept. But that was a long time ago, before…well, before.   
Before sufficed in Elsa’s mind (she didn’t like dredging up the past, because it hurt in a strange, sinking way like isolation always tended to hurt---as if she was drowning, and could never get a deep enough breath). The spot was balder now, and he was fatter, and she was taller and older, and didn’t really want to draw smiley faces on his head anymore. 

“Queen Elsa,” he repeated, puffing as he hurried down the hallway after her, “we’ve received news from the Southern Isles!”

“They don’t need to apologize,” she replied quickly, before she could begin to think about the day on the fjorde again. “It wasn’t their fault---”

“Prince Hans was not on the ship when it docked,” he interrupted. “He simply… vanished.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “Vanished?” The doorknob frosted over before she could pull her hand away. The hallway began to spin. 

_Keep calm, keep calm…_ she coached herself, turning on her heels into her room, frost eating at her footprints as she went.

The steward followed against his better judgement. “We’ll find him, your majesty. There is no where in all the nine kingdoms---”

“How did he escape?” she wanted to know, and pulled at her glittery shrug until it wound tight around her shoulders. Even though Anna was all right, and even though an act of true love saved her--both of theirs, really---heart, Elsa constantly felt the reverberations of that day on the fjorde in her bones. She couldn’t sleep at night without thinking about it, without remembering the arc of Hans’ shadow across the ice, the sound of the sword as it cut through the frigid air---a high-pitched whistling that struck her very soul. 

And even when Hans wasn’t a threat, she was afraid.

Who else thought she was a witch? That she was evil? The word sent a shiver down her spine, and Elsa was rarely cold. She’d always thought of herself as alone, as someone who didn’t stand with the rest of Arendelle, but she never thought she was evil. Anna didn’t think she was evil. Or Kristoff. Or Olaf…

But the Duke of Weaselton had. And his cohorts. Had the other rulers thought so too, but were too afraid to voice it? How about the found princess of Corona and her new fiance? They had smiled at her coronation and told her how beautiful she looked, and afterwards when they finally left, they were nothing but smiles and good humor.

Like Anna and Kristoff, all smiles and jokes and warm, honey laughter.

Elsa didn’t understand. She didn’t understand how the could be full of nothing but hope and heart and Good Things. Elsa always thought she was full of Good Things too, just trapped with a condition that caged all the good she could do, but was she wrong?

Could she, to some extent, be made of some other type of person?

She also didn’t understand how someone could just vanish onboard a ship. It irked her. 

Absolutely irked her!

“Mock up wanted posters,” she told the steward, beginning to pace back and forth over the Persian rug, which was now nothing more than a crunchy mat of snow. “Make sure it looks like him to the finest detail---especially his nose. Button shaped, and his eyebrows were sort of thin and angular, remember? And he had these sideburns---and hair! He had hair. Red. Red hair and---”

“Your Majesty,” the steward interrupted gently, “I believe we all remember what he looks like. It will be fine.”

Elsa slowed to a stop, her shoulders stiff, and nodded. “You’re right. Thank you.” She folded her hands together in front of her, gathering herself together again, and turned toward the steward with an earnest expression. “Could you please not tell Anna about this? I don’t want…I don’t want to worry her.”

“Are you sure, your majesty? She’ll be extremely upset when she finds out you’ve been keeping this information from her,” he advises genuinely.

“If she finds out.” She gave him a pointed look. “I need your word on that, Humphreys.”

“You have my loyalty.” He gave a stout bow.

She nodded. “Thank you. I think that will be all,” she added dismissively.

The steward sighed and nodded, closing the door behind him as he shuffled away. She wrapped her shawl around herself and sank down onto her bed. Even though she was queen, she had decided not to move into the main chamber, because in her mind it still belonged to her parents, and she stilled hoped her father would walk in and lay his big, warm hand on the top of her head, and say what a good job she was doing.

She was doing a good job, wasn’t she? Love outweighed fear. Love outweighed everything. It turned back the winter, it returned summer.

But she wished with all---okay, maybe just a lot---of her heart that love could turn back the winter inside of her, too.

She stepped outside onto her balcony and leaned against the balustrade, gazing down into the courtyard where a group of kids skated in circles around the fountain. She remembered when she and her sister used to skate like that in the ballroom, throwing snowballs at each other until their fingers were numb. That was back when Elsa’s fingers could go numb. Now they were just there, instruments she could grab with and touch with, but even the marble balustrade under her fingertips she can’t feel, though she knew its smooth with small ruts and edges from the wind and rain. But memory could only substitute for so much, she found out. 

And not even love, as warm and bright and brilliant as it is, could bring that back.

“Born or cursed?” the troll king had asked once, and her father had replied the former so quickly, it unsettled Elsa. If she was born with frost, then how come her parents were not? How come no one in her family, back through all the generations, had never once been like her? She had looked, all those years she kept to herself in her room, she had looked for something---anything---to give her some clue as to why she was born with something so terrible.  
If she was born with it, then the gods were unjust and unkind, and she hated them for it.

“Your majesty,” said a voice behind her.

She sighed. “What is it---” She turned around and paused.

It wasn’t her steward, but a tall and brittle-looking man with a swipe of black hair greased back against his head. He stood in the shadow of the doorway, his black robes blending with the shadows as if they were made of night itself. The side of his lips quirked up. “I’m so very sorry for the intrusion.”

“Who are you?” Elsa demanded, clutching onto the railings. She could feel it grow cold and ice over with her fear. Think warm, think love, think good. And it ebbed, slightly, painfully slow. “How did you get into my room?”

“Forgive me, I must not have many manners left,” he replied, thwarting her questions, and sweeped a low bow. “My name is Pitch Black. And you must be Queen Elsa.”

Now she was more annoyed than afraid. “How did you get here?”

“Trivialities, I assure you, against the greater picture,” he said, moving out onto the balcony with her. When he moved, the shadows followed.

She jerked up her hands. “I warn you, I’m dangerous.”

He laughed. “As am I, your grace, but I am not here to harm you. I merely want to warn you.”

“Of what?”

“Of the thing you fear the most.”

She thought of Hans, running against her with a sword held high, and her bones shivered. “I am not afraid.” But her voice wavered.

He tsked, shaking his head. “No, not of that. You are merely shocked by the boy. What you are afraid of--” and he came closer, trapping her against the railing, and gently took her chin “--is far, far darker than any boy with a sword.”

Her eyes widened.

He leaned close, smelling of all the things that came with the night---crisp wind and thunderstorms and moonflowers---and pressed his cool lips against her ear. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he hissed, and before his voice had faded from her head he was gone in a wisp of black smoke.

She stood there---she didn’t know how long---grappling onto the railing, ice spikes scattered around her like sentinels, until her steward’s voice rose her out of her thoughts.  
“Eugene is in the throne room, your grace,” he said hesitantly, glancing at the ice, and then at her unusually pale complexion. “Are you feeling well?”

The young queen blinked, detaching her fingers from the ice on the balustrade, and moved around the ice spikes. She passed him without an answer, a ghost through the room, and down the hallway toward the throne room. The shadowman’s voice echoed in her head like a siren, so loud her own thoughts were whimpers.

_No good deed goes unpunished._

_No good deed goes unpunished._

_No good deed…_

In the throne room, Eugene paced back and forth, his voice high and tight. He was already talking with Anna about whatever situation brought him back. Probably a tree in the road, one so big they couldn’t get by. He was probably complaining about being late for their wedding. He might’ve found the portrait from the coronation where his nose was too big---again.

She pressed herself against the backside of a pillar, and closed her eyes. They hadn’t seen her yet. She felt exhausted, and latent, and all she wanted to do was let Anna handle it. Everyone loved Anna, anyway. They loved her more with one word than they had ever loved Elsa with an entire conversation.

She closed her eyes, and realized at that moment her decision had already been made a long time ago. Pulling off her gloves, one finger at a time, she left them behind the pillar and escaped the throne room toward the horse stables.


	5. 5. The Frozen Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Hans finally reaches the heart of the mountain, he finds out why the shadow-god crossed worlds to come here... for a power that hasn't been whispered of since Queen White four hundred years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Readers! Sorry for the late update. Life (and writing deadlines) have gotten in the way of a few things! But I'm slowly but surely truckin' on this story! No fear! As you can tell by the summary, I'm taking some liberties with the Disney fairytales (and their original incarnates). Hope you'll enjoy the ride!

The mountain was dark, and warm. The heat slithered up Hans’ arms like snakes, curling around his jacket, prickling sweat against the back of his neck. He took off his gloves to pat the back of his damp neck. He could barely see five feet in front of him, but he knew where he was going. If anything, he always knew where he was going. It was kind of hard to get lost in a cave with two directions---out, or down.  
And he was most-definitely going down.

If the Shadow-god followed, he didn’t know. He couldn’t see the man anyway, and he didn’t dare to look back, because he knew himself too well. He knew he’d start regretting the descent. He’d start questioning whether he really wanted his brothers dead, or if he merely wanted them out of his life. Dead and gone were the same thing, weren’t they?

They were close enough.

The longer he trekked downward, the hotter the cave became until even the rocks began to sweat from the heat. He’d been in saunas before. Hell, he was from the Southern Isles, where it was more tropics and cancer than snowball and fun times. He was used to stifling hot, to a heat so heavy it was hard to breathe. But this was a different kind of hot.

This was a hot that festered. It steamed. It ate, slowly, from the inside out. No matter how many times Hans fanned himself with his gloves, or how many articles of clothing he shrugged on his descent down, when he arrived at the center, in nothing but breeches an an undershirt, he expected to find lava. Molten flames. Something other than…

Than a girl. A child at best.

Dark shoulder-length hair. Frail. In a white wedding dress. When Hans stepped closer, he recognized her face, and his heart jumped into his throat.

“You look confused,” said the voice of the shadow-man.

Hans’ muscles tensed as he turned to face the tall figure in the shadows. “What’s the meaning of this? Queen White died four hundred years ago.”

“She did indeed,” he said in good humor. “She lived a long and healthy life. This is just…what remains of her.”

“What remains?”

Pitch shrugged apathetically. “It is interesting what parents will tell their children as bedtime stories, and then later begin to believe themselves.”

Hans gave him a quizzical look. “So she didn’t die.”

“Boy, she is very much dead, but as I recall the story is that she fell to her death…poor girl, if she had it would have been a lenient punishment. But she did not.”

“Stop speaking in circles. How did she die?”

Pitch stopped to sit on a rock jutting out from the wall, and crossed one leg over the other. “If I recall, when Snow dropped dead, the Queen fled back to her castle thinking she had won. She was planning a banquet to celebrate. She even decided to let the man in the mirror go. It was a joyous time for her, I assure you. But during her celebration, the Prince came in with his men and captured the Queen. It was a complete mess. Blood everywhere. He was about to kill the Queen---behead her, actually, men will do strange things in the name of fourteen-year-old girls in your land, I suppose---when the man in the mirror, newly freed, told the Prince the death curse could be broken with True Love’s Kiss.” He gave a fake, overly-dramatic sigh. “And so the Prince kissed her, yada-this yada-that, and on their wedding day as a celebration they strapped hot irons to the Queen’s feet and made her dance until she died.”

“Seriously?” Hans blanched.

He looked lazily at the Prince. “You can’t honestly be that surprised, you nearly beheaded a Queen yourself.”

“Yeah, well---she was going to put the entire world in an eternal winter if I didn’t stop her.”

Pitch waved his excuse off. “No no, I’m not judging. Murdering women must run in your family. On the Queen’s dying breath, she uttered a curse to the newly betrothed.”

Hans scoffed, although he couldn’t shake the coldness that had crept between the sweat and his skin. He rubbed his bare arms. “Like I care about a curse four hundred years ago. Didn’t affect me.”

The shadow-man shrugged. “True, but it does help you, however. You want revenge on your brothers, your father, all of Arendelle…here it is.”

“It’s a girl in ice.”

“It only looks like a girl. It’s so much more, like so many things in this world. On the Queen’s dying breath, as her feet puckered and fell to ash, she cursed Snow White’s heart.” He tilted his head, as if remembering a long-forgotten bedtime story.

_“Of all the pain you will not know_  
and all the love you shall not sow  
Festered deep beneath your porcelain skin  
In four-pence time shall first begin  
A prick to pull the past from sleep  
A petal to dry the tears she weeps  
The voice of air from fathoms below  
to silence her with a touch of snow.  
Deft claws to thread the wound apart  
and invisible hands to take your heart.  
So shall you never live to see  
what you have wrought in revenge of thee.”

“That’s a pretty poem,” Hans commented. “So I trekked all the way down here just to go on a wild goose chase with you? Is this what that creature was hiding? This--this girl?”

“That creature had guarded it for centuries. Now riddle me this, princey,” Pitch mocked, “why would it guard something useless? The curse is power, Hans. It’s something you cannot fathom. It is something you cannot begin to guess. It is what brought me here, what drew me like a moth to a flame.” He pressed his long, spindly fingers against the frozen fire, his glittery onyx eyes seeing nothing but the girl in the flames. “I can feel the Evil Queen’s powers. They are black fire and rain. They are smoke and ashes. They level mountains. They dry up oceans. They turn monsters into men. Men into monsters.” A grin twisted across his thin lips that made Hans want to disappear even more than he ever before.

He backstepped once, twice, but even when he disappeared, it didn’t matter to Pitch. He was no longer concerned with the Prince of the Southern Isles. Besides, Hans was sure Pitch could sense him wherever he was. His fear radiated from him like toxins. But… if this would be the thing to help him recover what was his---what had always been rightfully his. While his brothers mucked around, slaying dragons and sailing the seas after pirates and mermaids, he had been studying the country. He had been the only one on his mother’s deathbed. He had been the only one at her side.

He deserved the kingdom, not his brothers. Not his ailing father.

He did.

Hans stepped forward again, his hands clenched into fists. “Where do we start, then?”

The shadow-god slid his pitless eyes to the boy, and grinned hungrily. “Wherever you’d like.”


End file.
